Guardian seeks accounts of young jobseekers’ struggles in northern England

The Guardian sought accounts from young people in northern England who were out of work or education, or having difficulty securing a job. The appeal asked about unsuccessful applications, difficulty obtaining interviews, employer rejections and unanswered approaches, alongside the financial and emotional effects of looking for work.

The article cited a report published in May estimating that about one million people aged 16 to 24 across the UK were not in employment, education or training. That report warned the total could reach 1.25 million by the early 2030s without urgent government action. The appeal itself did not present testimony from jobseekers.

The appeal focused on northern England, but the numerical estimate it cited covered the whole UK. It supplied neither a regional breakdown nor findings about why young people were struggling to secure work. Its purpose was to gather experiences for a feature, rather than establish the scale of northern England’s employment difficulties.